Unpopular opinion: this is an overrated game. And I mean it: "unpopular". So much, that quick googling reveals how people get almost cancelled for saying it out loud. Gonna live my life on the edge, I guess...
I remember I tried playing it when it came out back in the day. I remember it being ok, but I did not finish it, and don't remember why. I think I played till the submarine and a little bit after that, but not sure. As with some other old(er) games I (re)played recently I tried this one as well and this time I definitely finished submarine episode early in the game and got to 2nd part of the "disguise" section. I dropped it when the guy I needed to protect in like a split second after exiting his cabinet, because I thought it was just not worth the hustle to continue.
Listen, it's just not that good. The music is great. And with "Alpine Faction" mod it looks quite decent even today in 4K. But the plot sucks, or at least the way it's presented. It looked like Parker gets involved in the revolution by accident, it even felt that the lack of clear direction in the beginning might have been intentional to enforce the idea of this being an accident. It is fine that he tried to escape being slaughtered, and all, but why is he helping the revolution? Just for funsies? He may be supporting it, that's fine, but what's his motivation of getting actively involved and doing missions for them? Let alone that missions seemed... It seemed like they were accidental as well, and not planned, even though initial revolt might have been?..
But, ok, plot is not always important in shooters, I mean, F.E.A.R. did not have that much plot, realistically, but it was very fun. Is Red Faction fun? Not really. Of course, there may be more interesting maps further on, but in the areas where I have been, there was practically no design. Just big empty rooms, big corridors connecting them, and that's it. The way some rooms with explicit purpose were connected also felt a bit... Strange. There were a couple of "multi-storied" rooms, which were kind of okay for shooting, but...
Shooting felt plastic. And to be honest, I did not feel that much difference between pistol, shotgun and assault riffle. I mean, there was some difference, of course, but it was not that drastic. Essentially fire-rate, and maybe a bit of damage, but the sense of impact, was practically the same. Those who do not play shooters at all don't know that the "feeling" of a weapon is quite important. Not always, of course, but it still can translate into the "fun". Which I did not feel. Running around with the music (which sometimes abruptly ended) - that was fun. Shooting - meh. Although the way the enemies seemed to try to circle back was good. Not sure if they actually were trying to do that or those were different ones, though.
The "legendary destruction"... Well, yes, it's here. In some places, not everywhere. It probably plays a huge role in multiplayer (did not try that, since I generally am not into online games, FFXIV is one rare exception, and I have not played that one in a while), but in singleplayer it does not matter much. Kind of. There is, actually, one place early in the game, where you need to blast a hole with 2-3 explosions to get past a closed door. When I reached that stage I immediately though: "What would happen if I do not have enough explosions?". It did not look like there were any rockets or remote bombs anywhere in the area, and I could have used them all up. But again, this was the only place in 1 hour or so, where destruction actually mattered for gameplay. Riding the driller or whatever that thing is called was fun, though.
So it's not like the game can't be fun at all. There are things that were fun for me, too. And I was surprised about ability to pickup bodies, which I completely forgot. But I feel like both at the release time and now, the game has been over-praised. Or maybe I just got used to better experiences over the years, dunno.
